digital sales RESEARCH

SITUATION

• Sales decline, profits decrease.
• Cross-selling opportunities are missed.
• You orient yourself toward the past, not customer potential.
• Customers are supported classically based on empirical values of inside/outside sales, digital big data clusters, social network qualities.
• Inside/outside sales work with customers intuitively instead of systematically.
• Daily time constraints prevent automatic analysis
  and action.
• New products at suppliers are missed.
• Offer follow-up is too late.
• Manager is not fully aware of how missed opportunities are handled.
• Management misses resulting options to respond in real time.

SOLUTION

• Automated recognition of every cross-selling
  opportunity.
• Automated exploitation based on sales potential
  and customer purchase behavior.
• Specific call to action in real time for inside/outside sales.
• Feedback to inside/outside sales on how opportunities are actually utilized.
• Selective approach based on customer group, digital clusters, and social network topologies.
• Connecting product range to offers requiring follow-up.
• New products at suppliers are recognized systematically and connected to the product range, including call for action.
• Manager recognizes the actual use of cross-selling opportunities and possible exploitation of potential
  per inside sales employee.
• Up-to-date, fast analysis provides targeted, leading results of inside/outside sales for the manager.
• Up-to-date, comparative, visual representation of the utilization of opportunities across the respective inside/outside sales per area.

SITUATION

• Orders are lost because the market price is assessed incorrectly.

• Pricing experts, e.g. managers/inside/outside sales,
  focus on their own experiences and habits in pricing, which frequently does not capture market and
  customer situations and therefore does not utilize potential.

• The price is too low due to unfamiliarity with the
  market situation.

• No overview of the price level in real time.

• Competitors working with digital pricing techniques increase their market shares at the expense of your
  own company.

SOLUTION

• Further development of the pricing strategy to
  determine the margin and increase sales.
• Unbureaucratic, fast pricing method for a feasible, resilient, profitable price based on the up-to-date
  pricing situation for the individual inside/outside
  sales employee/manager.
• Strengthening a stable, attractive, integrated contribution margin and thus defending against the downward trend of the contribution margin decline
  in the market.
• The pricing method must be used on site so that a appealing design, easy handling, and comprehensible logic impresses the user in everyday business.
• The individual time of day and mood-driven pricing frequently based on traditional habits and customer-dependent, historically oriented routine must be professionalized systematically (digitally!)
• The pricing method achieves a positive differentiation from the competition because it is utilized only for
  you specifically.
• The external company is the partner that sustainably
  and intensively supports successful implementation instead of giving only the conceptual theoretical framework.
• The e-business share can be increased with better
  price sensitivity.

SITUATION

• The personal customer and company data stored in
  CRM (birthdays, hobbies, anniversaries, trade fairs, etc.) are considered only randomly and intuitively and are often not used purposefully.
• The personal data is frequently not updated.
• Personal data, if it is considered at all, is generally
  used in uncreative and unsustainable campaigns.
• The personal relationship, and therefore orders, are
  lost based on increasing online orders of 60 to 70%.
• Customer retention decreases in the climate of a new, aggressive media culture; they are more willing to
  accept alternative offers.
• Direct personal or telephone contact alone without events.
• Quality loses its retaining force, and is not sufficient
  to differentiate against the competition.
• Too few personal, direct retention contacts (birthday, company anniversary) do not have a sustainably
  retaining effect.
• Competition also uses classical retention contacts (birthdays, etc.) and are therefore lost in a flood of
  the same information.
• Regular retention activities are missing.

SOLUTION

• Customized retention contact beyond the product/solution/service of the company (content management) addressing the customer on a private
  level once per week or more frequently.
• Alternative contact concepts (business information
  that is notable only for the individual) for the industry with strict complaint rules.
• Retention activities are controlled systematically
  and the respective inside/outside sales employees/
  key account manager is informed automatically with alternative action ideas.
• Creative retention is routine, not the exception
• Expansion of the customer relationship into an
  emotional event relationship (managing products
  and services is not sufficient, more senses must be addressed).
• Systematic utilization of all personal data in CRM.
• Ensuring current support through nonsupport,
  feedback related to the whole buying team.
• Automated connection between selling and buying
  team at adequate hierarchical allocation of retention activities.
• Creative retention ideas for a clear differentiation to competition.
• Digitalized, automated, systemized, permanent
  customer contact leads your sales from the passive
  to the proactive mode.

SITUATION

• The importance of inside sales is not doubted but
  the intensive and regular performance capability of inside sales is too weak.

• Pulling inside sales staff out for continued training
  would significantly weaken day to day operations to
  an extend that no training would have fewer negative effects.

• The experience of inside sales staff with classical training, seminars, workshops, on-site coaching,
  short sessions is particularly disenchanting. The
  taught “techniques, self-management, etc.“ fail
  without sustainable, permanent effects.

• Specific sales results or durable customer retention results are frequently measured only intuitively.

SOLUTION

• A permanent, digital option for continued education
  on “pricing“ is offered to inside sales staff during daily work, at the workplace.

• For example, a specific pricing technique appears on
  the screen as a pop-up while the inside sales member processes an offer and is about to call the customer to negotiate a price.

• Or up-selling/cross-selling information appears on the screen while the inside sales member reviews a customer’s sales volume based on product categories. Motto: if you buy A, you‘ll also buy …

• The digital form saves time because it is integrated
  into everyday work. External options, e.g. special events, training, workshop, coaching, etc. can be dropped.

• Informal and formative learning takes the place of formal teaching and is 70% more effective and sustainable.

SITUATION

• The success rate of acquired projects compared to
  the effort expended is not economic and too many projects are lost
• The assessment of the actual chance of success of
  a project in % is frequently unrealistic
• The chance of an order in % is assessed in
  unreasonable, percentage-based categories or is not defined
• The information required for success is not recorded
  due to unprofessional research skills
• Prioritization of projects based on time expense is suboptimal if staff resources are scarce
• Adequate placement and positioning of the selling
  team to the buying team is intuitive/situational and
  not strategic/systematic
• Familiarity with decision-making and decision-preparation processes is too superficial
• Participation in the early phases of the project (high chance for an order because of high level of influence)
  is too infrequent
• The focus is too narrow to generate follow-up projects from current projects
• Projects realized by competition are not adequately known

SOLUTION

• Project assessment based on an innovative,
  systematic keys to success

• Early participation in the customer‘s project
  creation phase

• Early recognition of projects created at the customer

• The changes of success in % are assessed realistically based on a pragmatic consistency

• Intelligent, creative placement of own solutions in
  an early phase

• Projects are prioritized professionally, misalignments
  are avoided

• The decision makers/decision processes are captured optimally with intelligent methods

• The necessary information basis is recorded with professional researchers

• Selling teams are optimally matched with buying
  teams